“I do not think that she will trouble to go in search of him,” he answered. “I do not think that her suspicions are really aroused in connection with your father. She is an odd, changeable sort of girl. I daresay she will give up this quest before long.”
“I hope so,” I answered. “It would be a great relief to have her go away.”
There was a short silence between us. We were standing by the Vicarage gate, and my hand was upon the latch.
“I wonder,” he said, abruptly, “whether you would not walk a little way with me. It is such a fine day, and you look a little pale.”
I hesitated.
“But you are riding,” I said.
“That is nothing,” he answered, briskly. “Diana follows me like a lamb. We will walk along the avenue. I want you to see the elm trees at the top.”
We started off at once. There was nothing very remarkable about that walk, and yet I have always thought of it as a very memorable one. It gave a distinct color to certain new ideas of mine concerning my companion. We talked all the time, and that morning confirmed my altering impressions of him. Lady Naselton had spoken of him as rough and uncultured. He was neither. His lonely life and curious brusqueness were really only developed from mannerism into something more marked by a phase of that intellectual tiredness which most men ape but few feel. He had tried life, and it had disappointed him, but there was a good deal more of the cosmopolitan than the “yokel” in him.